Book #132: Deadly Pursuit by Robert V. Cox

 

Deadly Pursuit

Robert V. Cox

 Released: January 1st, 1977

My 62nd book for 2025 was Robert V. Cox’s “Deadly Pursuit”.  

First things first.  I'm going to credit my 12th grade English teacher Brenda Spence for adding this book to our curriculum.  This book was a huge part of Pennsylvania history, and the book is one of the scariest and most fascinating books I have ever read.  When she first passed the books out to our class, I had little to no interest in reading it.  After reading it, I have never forgotten this book and have thought back to it during random moments in life.

The story follows the 1967 kidnapping of Peggy Ann Bradnick (Mary Lou Broderick in the book) by William Hollenbaugh in the Shade Gap area of Pennsylvania.  One afternoon, after getting off the school bus, Hollenbaugh abducted her in front of her own siblings, and both disappeared into the woods.  An 8-day manhunt ensued, leading to what was at the time the largest manhunt in Pennsylvania state history.  Over 1,000 federal, state, and local agents of law enforcement were brought in.  After 8-days and the murder of FBI agent Terry Anderson, Hollenbaugh was shot and killed, and Bradnick was set free.

My sister Megan Perry used to work for The Record Herald in Waynesboro, PA, and actually interviewed Peggy Ann for the anniversary of the event.  I did not discover this until years later when I found the book at Powell's Books in Portland (of all places).

Rural Pennsylvania is a bit bland.  There's a lot of fields, mountains, and wilderness.  That's part of what makes this book immensely horrifying.  Let alone that this man abducted an underage girl, the fact that some of these law enforcement officers had to go into abandon farmhouses in the middle of the dark night, to look for an armed sharpshooter with a hostage is terrifying.  There is one scene in particular that I always remembered scaring me back in high school.  The officers go to an abandon farmhouse with a barn.  Inside the barn, they encounter a startled flock of pidgins who fly out.  Following this, they enter the dwelling, only to hear creaks and noises as they search the home.  I think this book did more give people a fear of the dark than any Friday the 13th movie ever did.

I always remember how in the book, people referred to Hollenbaugh as "Bicycle Pete" as he used to cruise around the Shade Gap area on his bike doing his thing.  The book has parts that refer to him as "The Mountain Man" but every time I retell this story to others, or talk about it, I always refer to him as "Bicycle Pete".  His bike was actually on display in Hershey, PA as an attraction in State Law Enforcement Museum feature.

I grew up about 45 miles away however the event took place 22 years before I was born.  It read a lot different as an adult because as a teenager, I had only ever lived in Waynesboro.  As an adult, I've lived in Shippensburg, Roxbury, Chambersburg, and Carlisle, and have visited a lot of the other places that sent officers and agents out to track down the killer.  It's a bit surreal to picture this as an event in the modern day, but it shows just how remote those parts were in those days.  I even know some people who knew the victims, or lived in the area around that time.  That always blew my mind.

Spoiler Alert: I have always recommended this book to people.  Even when I picked up my own copy, I bought a 2nd copy for an ex of mine's coworker who came with us for a P!nk concert at the Moda Center.  I don't know if she ever read it, but if she did, she was in for an intense true crime story.

Here is what I learned:

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• To Martha and Phyllis.
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The author wishes to thank John C. Staley, J. Michael Anderson, Barbara Norville, and Leslie Fleisher Schwartz for their editorial assistance. Special thanks is given to Kenneth L. Peiffer, Jr. who not only shared many of the experiences with the author and provided a pictorial account of the events, but whose individual experiences are recounted in this work.
• The book tells the true story of the kidnapping of Mary Lou Broderick.
• The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967.
• The story begins with Viola Jacka on April 6th, 1964.
• Viola was a widow who lived alone with no family nearby.
• Viola lived in the remote wooded area between Shade Gap and Orbisonia, PA.
• Viola was 51.
• Her husband died of an incurable disease.
• Someone threw a rock through her living room window.
• Her phone line was cut, and the perpetrator fired a gun just above her head missing her.
• Mary Holden was her neighbor.
• Mrs. Holden did not have a telephone.
• Viola’s boyfriend lived in Orbisonia.
• Trooper Carl F. Ruegg took their call.
• A young male initially confessed to be the shooter, but was found to be lying and seeking attention.
• 18 residents were questioned.
• Anne Weaver was the next resident who had an experience on June 1st, 1964.
• Anne was 49.
• And was struck in the back of the head and the spine with a rifle.
• She made it safely to her neighbors, the Hart’s house.
• Trooper Peter Migatulski took the report.
• The Harts could not stop the bleeding from the gash on the back of Anne’s head.
• Helen Locke was a nurse who lived a few doors away.
• A 1956 Chevrolet was seen leaving the area.
• A self-imposed curfew was immediately adopted and nighttime activity came to a halt.
• Martha I. Yohn had an event on July 1st, 1964.
• She would take her kids to Conan’s Gap.
• Her husband Charles was a truck driver.
• Her car was stopped by logs in the road.
• A mysterious man fired shots at her car.
• After badly damaging the car and shattering glass with a shot to a glass baby bottle, he escaped.
• Martha sputtered the car home where her husband and some friends found her and consoled her.
• Eighteen people were interviewed, including 2 who were brought in for questioning and a lie detector test.
• William Hollenbaugh was one of those 2.
• The shooter was nicknamed the “Mountain Man”.
• Mary Blake lived two miles from the Hart Market.
• Mountain Foot Road was unpaved.
• Lover’s trysts were common around Shade Gap.
• The Mountain Man shot the stock of her rifle.
• The bullet passed through her hand.
• The Mountain Man is skilled in first aid.
• The Mountain Man raped Mary outside during a thunderstorm.
• He was exceptionally hairy.
• Mary was taken to Chambersburg Hospital for her bleeding.
• Mrs. Blake spent 6 weeks in the hospital and only regained partial use of her hand.
• Private lives were brought to light overnight as police looked for the killer and questioned employers on their employees’ whereabouts.
• Ned Price was a 53-year old civilian railroad engineer at Letterkenny Army Depot.
• His wife Jessie was a few years younger than him.
• Ned was digging for fishing worms when he caught the Mountain Man peeping on his wife and was shot in the leg.
• Troopers Dick Fischer and Bob Kissner took the report.
• Trooper Ruegg took over the investigation.
• It was determined that the Mountain Man would chew bubble gum and masturbate on to the side of the Price’s home as he watched Jessie shower.
• Tom Stewart brought his veteran bloodhound in from the Carlisle area.
• The investigation was turned over to the Pennsylvania State Police under Detective Al Broscius.
• Ned’s lower leg had to be amputated.
• The raids by the Mountain Man had taken their toll: neighbor mistrusted neighbor, friend turned against friend.  The children of the area had a new game-Kill the Sniper.
• Most of the victims abandon their homes for new residences.
• Bob Cox was a local news reporter they trusted to relay information to.
• Joan McMichael was attacked May 5th, 1966.
• Joan was grabbed by the ankle as she discarded a bottle into a receptacle on her front porch.
• Mary Lou Broderick was abducted on May 11th, 1966.
• She was a 17-year old junior in high school.
• On Saturdays, she and her friends would frequent the Blue Mountain Roller Rink in Roxbury.
• Issas Frehn was the bus driver.
• Her brother Joe was a 16-year old sophomore.
• Her other younger siblings; Alice Beth, Karen Lee, Jane Ellen and twin brother Dan Lester were all on the bus as well.
• The Mountain Man appeared as the got off the bus.
• Joe ran home and informed his father George who grabbed his shotgun and attempted to find Mary.
• Constable Eugene Frank Clippinger took the report.
• He worked for the Pennsylvania Glass and Sand Company and as a part-time bus driver.
• Captain Edward Swatij and Lieutenant Edward Mitarnowski dispatched to the Constable’s home.
• Ruegg arrived accompanied by Trooper John Laskey.
• Roadblocks were placed on the Franklin County line and Neelyton Mountain.
• It was the largest manhunt in Pennsylvania at the time covering 40 square miles.
• Various police squads from Harrisburg, Chambersburg, Hanover, Lewistown, McConnellburg, Carlisle, and Gettysburg were involved.
• The search teamed checked an abandoned sawmill.
• During the first day’s hunt, a brassiere, women’s stockings, tissue paper, men’s underwear, and cloth rugs were discovered.
• Terry Anderson was an FBI agent from Nebraska stationed in Camp Hill, PA.
• He became passionate about the area, and wanted to spend the rest of his life there.
• "I don't have to tell you again, this guy is dangerous. If it's the same guy that's been doing the shooting, he can pick out a gnat's eye at 100 yards. Just remember, there ain't no live heroes.”  - Chambersburg Trooper Milton Brown
• Chambersburg Troopers Herb & Swider are led by local guide Charlie, to an abandoned farmhouse with 2 barns in the creepiest scene from the book.
• There are lots of abandon places along the foot of Neelyton Mountain.
• A deep well was inspected near the ruins of an abandoned home that burned down.
• Robert Cox drove a VW bus.
• The situation became more dangerous when police reasoned a team of 200 local armed men, with an itching desire to kill the Mountain Man arrived.
• “It was damn scary.  Every man in the party was primed and ready to blow apart anything that moved.  A guy next to me said, “If I see the son-of-a-bitch, I’ll blow his head off.” - Trooper Herb.
• Ken Peidfer and Mr. Broderick search an abandoned farm and house.
• Potholes are a big issue in Pennsylvania.
• Thomas McGinn ran a K-9 Academy in El Dorado, Arkansas.
• Thomas, his wife Helen, and their infant son drove 1,260 miles in 17 hours.
• “Did you ever hear anything about a local yokel named ‘Bicycle Pete’?…Well, there's this guy who has been missing from his home down toward Burnt Cabins since the kidnapping.  Hollenbaugh, Hollyburger, something like that. We're checking him out now. Seems like he goes off without telling anyone. A sort of recluse, no friends, just a couple of dogs or something like that. They say he rides a bicycle all over these back roads up here and never looks up to see where he's going. Sort of a weirdo. Guess there's at least one in every community.”
• Hollenvaugh had a record and a history of mental illness.
• A cave was searched and dogs picked up Mary Lou’s scent.
• By day 4, more than 600 civilians, 100 state police, and nearly 2 dozen FBI agents were involved in the search.
• Ned Price knew where Hollenbaugh lived.
• On Day 5, the authorities sent civilians out on return home to their job and school.
• Hollenbaugh once spent time at the Waymart State Mental Hospital.
• Hollenbaugh had been convicted in 1939, at eighteen, on burglary and larceny charges and was sentenced to a term of five to ten years in Western Penitentiary. He was later sent to Rockview and escaped, but was picked up soon after and returned to prison.
• Later, in 1946, he was committed to Farview Hospital for the criminally insane. After his discharge in June 1959, he settled in Shade Gap.
• He had an eighth-grade education, was considered a scavenger, worked odd jobs, and received money from state welfare subsistence.
• Terry kissed his sleeping children before leaving on Day 7.
• Terry Anderson had a speaking engagement on Thursday in Carlisle.
• Hollenbaugh shot and killed Terry Anderson with his rifle.
• After Anderson’s death, an additional 250 state troops were called in and an additional 140 FBI Agents.
• Anderson’s death was only the sixth in the Agency’s history.
• The Pennsylvania National Guard was activated.
• There were now 500 state troopers and 140 FBI Agents from Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore and Pittsburgh.
• There were 260 National Guard members armed with everything under a bazooka.
• By mid-afternoon, 1,000 men from were on hand.
• Hollenbaugh snuck into Deputy Sheriff Francis Sharpe’s Shonek cabin.
• Sharpe was shot while going to the bathroom.
• Grant Mixell was the man who shot and killed Hollenbaugh.
• The hunt took 8 days.
• Hollenbaugh had planned the kidnapping for a long time.
• Hollenbaugh stated that he never meant to hurt anyone, and only wanted a woman for himself.
• "It would be easy to say that I despise the very memory of him.
• “I don't believe that all the misery, sorrow and death he caused was entirely his fault. It seemed to me that he was a person everybody had rejected. Apparently nobody ever took an interest in him. He was about as lonely as a human being can get. He was fighting back in the only way he could figure out, trying to capture by force the human companionship he couldn't get any other way. I just happened to be the one he caught.”

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Overall, this book carries my highest recommendation.  Let alone being a largely notable event on my home state's history, the book reads exceptionally well, and it's no wonder it won Pulitzer Prize.

Highest Recommendation.

On to Book #133: Gretzky by Wayne Gretzky.

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Need to catch up?  See previous blog post: Iron Man: The Cal Ripken Jr. Story.